CO-FOUNDER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - CORE COLLABORATOR

rNita Little investigates embodied attention within movement practices with a concentration on the technicities of both creative and relational practices. Through ensemble dance improvisation practice and performance she works toward a future that recognizes our environmental entanglements and values many forms of embodied communication.

A dance researcher, theorist/artist, and one of the founding developers of Contact Improvisation (CI) she teaches around the globe, guiding one of its forward leading edges. She began 50 years ago, working with Steve Paxton on materials that became CI (1972) and was a participant in the earliest performances and teaching that helped it to become significant within dance and dance communities. Within CI’s first year she developed a curiosity about the relationship of the (physical) mind and relational events. Now, she investigates ecological actions of embodied attention, particularly with respect to somatic communication between humans and between humans and the non-human.

Nita received her PhD in Performance Studies with a focus on the articulation of presence and creative actions of attention (2014). Her life work is inclusive of mindbody training, performing, choreographing, researching and writing about the ethics, politics and entanglement of somatic relations. With a world-wide audience for her teaching, dance making, and lecturing, she is an activist for relational intelligence and an advocate for dancers as embodied researchers. www.nitalitte.com

REGIONAL DIRECTOR, UNITED KINDGDOM

Silvia s a dance artist, researcher, film-maker, and dance movement therapist. Her work focuses on relational practices and developing skills to enrich and enhance group activities. She is interested in somatic dance practices, group improvisation and embodiment. Her practice investigates moving and creating as a group, cross disciplinary dialogues and multi-modal approaches to being with self, others and the environment . She pursues a dialogue between a ‘pure’ physical experience and experiences that dialogue with technologies. She is part of the Creative Corporealities Research Group at Bath Spa University.

Silvia completed her MA in Dance in 2018 at Bath Spa University where she is currently an Associate Lecturer. Her screendance work has been screened in the Uk, Italy, Hungary, Mexico and Brazil. Latest films and dance works, Sonic Dancer, In your hands (Michael Pennie Gallery-Bath), Urban Feral (Centrespace Gallery- Bristol), Six Short Dance Pieces (Ocean Studios-Plymouth).

She is a resident at a The Studio in Bath and works with young people and adults in various settings as a therapist. Silvia directed for 3 years the first ISSC CoLaB in the UK (Bristol). Currently she is developing a multi-modal training for special needs schools, using Relational Intelligence principles and looking at the impact of the ISSC research outside dance practices.

CO- DIRECTOR

Łucznik has an eclectic background in psychology, cognitive science and dance (MA in Psychology, University of Warsaw; MA in Choreography and Dance Theory Chopin Music University in Warsaw, PhD in Psychology, University of Plymouth), which inspired them to multiple disciplinary approaches to my studies, where I seamlessly shift between being a researcher and a dance practitioner. Her practice explores ensemble and CI tools, studying the nature of human interactions and the broader meaning of movement practises for our well-being and culture.

Since 2022, Łucznik has curated a movement improvisation labs programme and Warsaw CI Flow Festival organised by Perform Art Foundation and Mazovian Institute of Culture, funded by the City of Warsaw. She also facilitates workshops and performs with improvising ensembles across Europe.

Łucznik keeps close connections with the University of Plymouth (UK) and the University of the Philippines Open University, where since 2020, they have developed the Environmental Empathy project - embodied studies into the human-nature connection. This year (2023), Łucznik started her newest research, Felt Togetherness in Dance, in collaboration with Julian Zubek (University of Warsaw, PL), where they will explore phenomenological and enacted cognition tools alongside movement analysis software while reflecting on how we build and maintain togetherness while dancing.

Łucznik’s journey with ISSC started in 2018 when I became a member of Bristol ColLab in the UK.

GLOBAL COORDINATOR

Leighann Kowalsky is an artist and a producer. She choreographs and performs with the d'amby project, Erick Hawkins Dance Company, and independently for a number of projects. Performance venues have included Jacob's Pillow's Inside/Out Stage, The Queen Elizabeth Theater in Vancouver, B.C., The Fisher Center for Performing Arts at Bard College, and a residency term at DANCEHOUSE in Dublin, Ireland.

Kowalsky travels the world choreographing works for studios and companies, educating dancers of all ages, producing events, building curricula and programming, and filming movers in unique ways. Recently, she retired from being the director for dance & circus at Millbrook School, and is now the Director of Dance & Film at Festival Theater Hudson, and continues as adjunct faculty at Dutchess School for Performing Arts.

Leighann Kowalsky makes art. She choreographs and produces dance, film, circus and visual theater works independently and for a number of organizations, as well as educates and experiments at the intersection of disciplines. Collaborative in nature, Kowalsky cultivates relationships and expands the dimensions of attention and sensation in her work, while playfully inviting others into that world. www.LeighannKowalsky.com

REGIONAL DIRECTOR, EUROPEAN UNION

Minou Tsambika Polleros is a dance artist and dancer researcher, working as choreographer, educator and producer based in the South West of England. She holds a BA (Hons) degree in Choreography and Visual Art Practices from Dartington College of Arts and a Masters degree in Social Sculpture from Oxford Brookes University. Minou works as freelance dance artist, dance producer and project manager. Her works focus on site based dance projects in outdoor natural and public spaces. Her works understand themselves as forum for expanding the notion of the dance practitioner, evoking more consciousness for active citizenship and a more embodied system change in both environmental and social arenas. As educator,

Minou has taught at University Falmouth, Schumacher College and she has mentored students at the Dartington Art School, she has led regular contemporary dance classes, shortcourses, and community dance events where she lives. In 2016, she was funded by the Austrian Cultural Forum to produce a site specific choreography for the Pune Art Biennale in India. In 2019 Minou received arts council England funding to produce a one day dance festival at Dartington, UK in cooperation with Dance in Devon & Dartington Arts. Between 2017 and 2023 Minou was co-director of art.earth an organisation dedicated to the dialogue between art and the natural world who she also supports as project manager.

In 2021 she had the privilege to convene a large UK based symposium called Sentient Performativities: Thinking Alongside The Human where 170 artists, academics, somatic movement practitioners, educators and therapists came together to share their work and investigate somatic practices and how they can foster embodied ecological awareness and communication between the human and more than human worlds. Minou has recently joined the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices based in Coventry as external reviewer. She co-founded Movement Network South West, with two dance artists with the main aim to support dance and somatic researchers locally, while strengthening own practices and eco-somatic enquiries.

Minou is furthermore developing an eco-somatic network in the UK, with the aim to develop an international network and open access resource for eco-somatic practitioners. Since 2019 Minou is I am a member of the Institute of the Study of Somatic Communication steered by Dr. Nita Little based in Bristol where she is interested to investigate relational intelligence as practice that contributes towards developing a more relational humanship with both the human and more than human world. Minou is furthermore preparing for doctoral research with the topic of Visceral Empathy as instrument of consciousness: developing capacities for ecological citizenship and a more embodied activism. To find out more about her practice: www.minoutsambika.com

CO-DIRECTOR

Dr Lisa May Thomas is a dance artist and researcher. She is currently working at the new ESRC funded Centre for Sociodigital Futures at the University of Bristol. She investigates the intersections between dance, embodied participation and immersive technology, and her film and performance work has been experienced by audiences around the world. Lisa is a resident at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol and Studio Wayne McGregor QuestLab Network Artist. Her practice-as-research PhD at the University of Bristol investigated the role of digital technologies in performance, combining dance-somatic and improvisation practices with multi-person VR technology. Recently, she directed VR participatory performance work Soma (Bloomsbury Theatre 2021) and participatory binaural sound experience Unlocking Touch in collaboration with UCL’s Digital InTouch Lab (2022). She has presented her work at numerous academic events, such as C-Dare’s ‘Somatic Practices and Chronic Pain’ research network at Coventry University (2020), for ‘Bodies, Movement and AI in VR’ at Goldsmiths University (2021), and presenting on VR and the senses in performance at the Sentient Performativities Symposium at Dartington Hall, Tanzmesse in Dusseldorf, and the Inter Arts Centre at Lund University (2022). Lisa also teaches somatic practice, dance technique, improvisation/contact improvisation, dance film, and performance making with immersive technologies in HE, professional and community dance contexts. She is currently undertaking CPD training to be a breath-work instructor.